The Approaching Dark
by jamescrab1
Summary: Two masters go on a journey to save the world
1. The Carnival

Late on a full-mooned Friday night, two figures dressed in traveling clothes appeared on Route 31, just outside the small college city of Violet. One was tall, barely under seven feet, strongly built, and perfectly proportioned. The other was petite, a shadow of the giant, but with an air of power and confidence. One, the taller, was dark haired and sharp-featured, the other blonde and beautiful. From a half-mile away they looked towards the city, regarding the cocophnic sounds of gaiety from the storefronts, streets, and alleys within it. They started walking.

It was the time of the Sprout Festival, the town's yearly excersise in frivolity and chaos, its way of saying thank you, come again, good luck and nice to have you to the eighty or so college students at The Trainer School who would be getting their long awaited Summer break from classes. Most would pack up and go on their own Pokemon journeys, but all would definitely stay at least long enough to take in the festivities, the street dance, the carnival rides, the Pokemon contests, and whatever else could be had, over or under the table, for kicks. It was a wild time, a chance to get drunk, pregnant, beat up, ripped off, and sick, all in the same night.

The rides were best viewed in the dark, an escapade in gaily lit rust, powered by unmuffled tractor engines that competed with the wavering carnival music which squawked like a Spearow from somewhere in the middle of it all. But on this warm summer night the roaming, cotton-candied masses were out to enjoy, enjoy, enjoy. A ferris wheel slowly turned, hesitated for boarding, turned some more for unboarding, then took a few full rotations to give its passengers their money's worth; a merry-go-round spun in a brightly lit, gaudy circle, the peeling and desmembered Ponytas still prancing to the melody of the horrible tune; carnival-goers threw novelty Poke'Balls at baskets, dimes at ashtrays, darts at Drifblim-shaped balloons, and money to the wind along the hastily assembled, ram-shackle midway where the hawkers ranted the same try-yer-luck chatter for each passerby.

The two visitors stood tall and silent in the middle of it all, wondering how a city of five-hundred people-including college students-could produce such a vast, teeming crowd. The usually quiet population had turned out in droves, augmented by diversion-seekers from elsewhere, until the streets, Pokemon Centers, marts, alleys, and parking spots were jammed, anything was allowed, and the illegal was ignored. The police did have their hands full, but each rowdy, vandal, drunk, or theif in cuffs only meant a dozen more still loose and roaming about the town. The festival, reaching a crescendo now on its last night, was like a terrible storm that couldn't be stopped; one could only wait for it to blow over, and there would be plenty to clean up afterward.

The two visitors made their way slowly through the people-packed carnival, listening to the talk, watching the activity. They were inquisitive about this city, so they took their time observing here and there, on the right, on the left, before and behind. The milling throngs were moving around them like swarms of Beedrill in a light rain, meandering from this side of the street to the other in an unpredictable, never-ending cycle. The man and woman kept eyeing the crowd. They were looking for someone.  
"There," said the dark-haired man.

They both saw her. She was young, very pretty, but also very unsettled, looking this way and that, a camera in her hands and a stiff-lipped expression on her face.

The two hurried through the crowd and stood beside her. she didn't notice them.

"You know," the blonde woman said to her, "you might try looking over there."

With that simple comment, she guided the woman by a hand on her shoulder toward one particular booth on the midway. She stepped through the grass and RageCanyBar wrappers, moving toward the booth where some teenage trainers were egging each other on in popping Drifblim balloons with darts. None of that interested her, but then...some shadows moving stealthily behind the booth did. She held her camera ready, took a few more silent, careful steps, and then quickly raised the camera to her eye.

The flash of the bulb lit up the trees behind the booth as the two strangers hurried away to their next appointment. 


	2. The Hill

They moved smoothly, unfalteringly, passing through the main part of town at a brisk pace. Their final destination was a mile past the center of town, right on Poplar Street, and up to the top of Fetch Hill about a half mile. Practically no time at all had passed before they stood before the little white church on its postage-stamp lot, with its well-groomed lawn and dainty Sunday-School-and-Service billboard. Across the top of the little billboard was the name "Violet Community Church," and in black letters hastily painted over whatever name used to be there it said, "Michael B. Kenyon, Pastor."

They looked back at a sharp sound, which turned out to only be a quickly fleeing Ratata. From this lofty hill one could look over the whole town and see it spread from city limit to city limit. To the west sparkled the caramel-colored carnival; to the east stood the dignified and matronly Trainer School campus; along Route 31, Main Street through town, were the storefront offices, the smalltown-sized mart, a few gas stations at war, a beautifully painted Pokemon Center, the local newspaper, several small family businesses. From here the town looked so typically Johto-small, innocent, and harmless, like the backround in every Norman Rockwell painting.

But the two visitors did not perceive with eyes only. Even from this vantage point the true substratum of Violet weighed very heavily upon their spirits and minds. They could feel it: restless, strong, growing, very designed and purposeful...a very special kind of evil.

It was not unlike either of them to ask questions, to study, to probe. More often than not it came with their job. So they naturally hesitated in their business, pausing to wonder, Why here?

But only for an instant. It could have been some acute sensitivity, an instinct, a very faint but for them descernible impression, but it was enough to make them both instantly vanish around the corner of the church, melding themselves against the beveled siding, almost invisible there in the dark. They didn't speak, they didn't move, but they watched with a piercing gaze as something approached.

The night scene of the quiet street was a collage of stark blue moonlight and bottomless shadows. But one shadow did not stir with the wind as did the tree shadows, and neither did it stand still as did the building shadows. It flapped, climbed, moved along the sky toward the church, while any light it crossed seemed to sink into its blackness, as if it were a breach torn in space. But this shadow had a shape, an animated, dragonlike shape, and as it neared the church sounds could be heard: the scratching of claws against the ground, the faint rustling of breeze-blown, membranous wings wafting just above the creature's shoulders.

It had arms and it had legs, but it seemed to move without them, crossing the street and mounting the front steps of the church. Its leering, sharp eyes reflected the stark blue light of the full moon with their own jaundiced glow. The intimidating head protruded from hunched shoulders, and wisps of rancid red breath seethed in labored hisses through jagged fangs.

It let out a horrible cry and reared up on its legs, looking about the quiet neighborhood, the white, powerful jowls snapping a deafening crunch. It moved toward the front door. The dragon charged the door like a spear, but stopped dead before reaching its target.

Suddenly, as if colliding with a speeing wall, the creature was knocked backward and into a raging tumble down the hill, the glowing red breath tracing a corkscrew trail through the air.

With a cry of rage and indignation, it gathered itself up off the sidewalk and turned to face its attacker. The membranes on its back began to billow, enfolding great bodies of air, and it flew with a roar headlong at the mysteriously appearing, armor covered monster, closer and closer, vomiting up blistering fire-and into a cloud of black and purple waves.

The creature screamed and curled in its wings for protection, then felt itself being thrust about left and right like a ragdoll, caught in a concentrated earthquake.

The wings hummed in a blur as it banked sharply in a flying turn and headed for the attacker again, outrage burning in its throat, its claws bared and pised for attack, a ghostly siren of a scream rising in its chest. It exploded in over and over in outrage-

And felt its insides breaking and coming loose.

The armored monster slashed the dragon's wings in half, smashed his snout into his brain, stomped his knees into pointed, protruding bones and finally crunched its sharp teeth into his neck. One final scream, and the flailing of withering arms and legs. Then there was nothing at all except the ebbing stench of sulfur and the two strangers, appearing from their hiding spots.

The blond woman returned her triumphant Tyranitar and replaced the Dusk Ball on her belt.

"A dark Salamence?" she asked.

"It seems so."

"And that was one of the poorly made ones?"

"I've not seen weaker."

"No indeed. And just how many would you say are here?"

"More, much more than we, and more than just Salamence's. Never just Salamence's."

"So I've seen," the woman sighed.

"But what are they doing here? We've never seen such concentration before, not here."

"Oh, the reason won't be hidden for long." He looked through the foyer doors and toward the sanctuary. "Let's see this man of God." 


End file.
